Pixar’s Quest To Pull the Heartstrings Continues With Solid But Unremarkable ‘ONWARD’

February 24, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ali Wong, Chris Pratt, Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Keith Bunin, Lena Waithe, Octavia Spencer, Onward, Out in Theaters, Pixar, Reviews, Tom Holland Leave a comment

I knew from the very onset that Onward was going to work my tear ducts like a German milkmaid squeezing at a bovine’s teat. It didn’t matter that the blue teenage elves looked more like the brainchildren of Dreamworks than Pixar, or that some of the comedy was a bit low-brow and slapstick, or even that Onward settles more in the mid-to-lower tier ranking of the once-unflappable animation studio’s filmography, this movie was always gonna turn me into a mushy adult sniveling away in a dark theater. And that it did. Read More

Fiery ‘QUEEN & SLIM’ So Much More than Black Bonnie and Clyde

November 26, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith., Lena Waithe, Melina Matsoukas, Out in Theaters, Queen & Slim, Reviews Leave a comment

An awkward first date sets the tone Melina Matsoukas’ Queen & Slim. Language and communication is just as much about talking as it is about the silences, our two characters are soon to discover, and Queen & Slim establishes early on the power of silence and the unspoken word. The magic of Tinder lands a man of dubious socioeconomic status (Daniel Kaluuya) and his recalcitrant one-night-eating-partner (Jodie Turner-Smith) at a diner booth with little to talk about. And little hope of physical connection. Silence can be warm or it can be infinitely awkward. This is definitely the later. An African-American lawyer, she wonders if it was the best he could afford. He claims they’re here because “It’s black-owned”. So too is Queen & Slim. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘READY PLAYER ONE’

March 27, 2018 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alan Silverstri, Ben Mendelsohn, Ernest Cline, Janusz Kamiński, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, Olivia Cooke, Out in Theaters, Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg, Tye Sheridan, Zak Penn Leave a comment

Ernest Cline’s 2011 dystopian YA novel ‘Ready Player One’ struck a nerve with self-described fanboys, sending readers into a tizzy of nostalgia-fueled nerdgasms. Many gyrated over the book’s overindulgent references to 80s pop culture, from coin-op arcade games to deeply engrained new wave synthpop cuts to the nerdcore iconography of John Hughes films. I personally found the book dull, monotonous and underwritten; reference-laden light reading that worked more as a pop culture checklist than an actual story. Worse yet, Cline’s book functioned as an unchecked celebration of deep-dive fandom in a time where fandom has become hostile, exclusionary and often vile. Read More